


that's not a mona lisa

by bwyn, Yuisaki



Series: rings, dimes, and toys [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, can someone explain to me why pidge has two tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 10:17:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11826675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwyn/pseuds/bwyn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuisaki/pseuds/Yuisaki
Summary: “You look like some kind of Darrell,” Lance goes on. “Or Carl. Or—or Steven.”Something in Keith goes deadly still.“Oh, no,” Pidge mutters.“Did you say I looked like a Steven?” Keith asks, and somehow he manages to sound utterly calm when he says it. “A Steven? Me?”“Who else here looks like a Steven, Steven?”Keith exhales. “Me. Steven.”“You,” Lance says. “Steven.”***In which Lance finds a garage and Keith finds a new reason to loathe gel pens.





	that's not a mona lisa

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [set the tone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3956980) by [Batman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batman/pseuds/Batman). 



Years from now, the lot of them will inevitably look back on their time on this particular college campus with its multitude of eccentricities and wonder: what started it all? Some might argue it began as far back as accepting admission, although others point out that one could also argue the moment of birth a factor.

In the end, though there is no end to a discussion without conclusion, they will agree that a series of inconsequential events—occurring throughout the first several weeks of a particular year where all involved individuals existed in tandem—is roughly where it began.

 _What_ began it is still up for debate.

For the purpose of retelling these events and all that follow, however, it begins with Lance.

Or rather, it begins with Lance hunting for a garage.

On a warm summer’s afternoon, Lance finds himself in need of a place near school where he can drag his shitty 1995 Corolla—bought in the summer between his first and second year—whenever things get a little shaky. With a blue raspberry slushie in one hand and a pen clicking in the other, he roams the multitude of small shops, cafés and grocery stores that dominate the area surrounding campus.

He eventually finds what he’s looking for at the end of the main road headed into the small downtown core. The shuttered doors are open in the summer heat, the bell tinkling at the entrance as a woman with a sharp A-line cut walks out.

When Lance enters, he’s blasted with warm air being churned around by a few despondent desk fans. Two of them are aimed at the red-headed young woman at the desk, the third at the patchwork chairs and pinball machine that make up the waiting room. As the bell jingles cheerfully overhead, the woman looks up from her phone and scrutinizes Lance with eyes rimmed in shimmering teal.

“‘Sup?” she says, smacking on bright pink bubblegum.

Lance puts the slushie down on the desk to give some relief to his numb fingers. “Hey.” He eyes her name tag. “Ezor? Is that like Rose backwards?”

She stares at him. “It’s like Ezor forwards.”

“Right.” Lance chuckles awkwardly. “So, how much for an oil change here?”

She tosses her long ponytail back; unnecessary, since it wasn’t over her shoulder in the first place. Lance’s eyes follow the motion reflexively as she says, “Twenty-five.”

“Cool.” He watches her blow a bright pink bubble until it reaches truly frightening proportions, poised in the air and trembling as if it might just burst then and there. “Uh. How about a tire change?”

The bubble shrinks, pops when it’s a safer size, and disappears back inside Ezor’s mouth with a swipe of her tongue. Lance gulps; she grins. “Fifty.”

“Thanks,” says Lance. “Can I get your number?”

“Nope,” she says, popping her lips on the p.

“Fuck.” A pause. “I mean. Right. Bye.”

The corner of her mouth twitches up dangerously. Lance is glad they’re the only ones there, otherwise he might have to induce a coma to survive the humiliation. He turns to go, pen clicking furiously.

“Hold up,” says Ezor.

Lance whips around embarrassingly fast. “Yes?”

“Your slushie.”

“Oh.” Ah, how he would love the floor to take him now, just open up a yawning abyss and claim him. Classes haven’t even started yet and he wants nothing more than to be rolled up in burlap—

His thoughts screech to a halt.

Ezor is looking at him quizzically, but Lance can’t bring himself to acknowledge her increasingly concerned look because there’s a wide window behind her, behind the desk. Wide enough to show most of the garage, and the cars suspended in the air with their underbellies exposed. Wide enough to show the mechanics toiling away—but especially, _especially_ , the one leaning over the engine of a shitty red Firefly.

The man straightens. Lance ogles bare arms and a short ponytail escaping from its tie, dark eyebrows and darker eyes, and the fact that the mechanic just smudged something black over his cheekbone—all of this, all of it, and Lance’s _type_ isn’t usually a stained and sweaty mechanic in fucking _overalls_ , the straps not even over his goddamn shoulders because—because _fuck_ , why would he bother?

“I’m gay,” announces Lance’s stupid bi ass, unaware that he’s declaring it straight to Ezor, who’s turning slowly on the spot to follow his gaze. “Holy fuck I’m _gay_.”

Hell. Hell if he’s not _trapped_ by this fucking greasemonkey. 

He doesn’t notice Ezor is laughing hysterically, hunched over the desk, until she slaps a many-ringed finger down on her keyboard and several of the keys go flying.

“Oh fuck,” she wheezes. “You’re _so_ gay.”

Mortified, Lance pushes himself away from the desk, snatching his slushie and clutching it to his chest and rabbiting heart.

She grins at him, still trying to calm her sputtering. “Do you want _his_ number instead?”

Backpedaling, Lance manages to squeak out a “No!” and then “No thanks!” and then “Bye!” before gracelessly leaving the establishment. He hears her guffawing even out on the sidewalk.

Lance vows to never return to the garage—except, well, they do have decent prices. So Lance immediately rescinds his vow, sullenly flicks an S key off his slushie, and trudges back down the road towards campus.

Later on, except for mentioning him in passing to Hunk, Lance won’t think anymore about the unfairly attractive greasemonkey except to mourn his social skills, and yet it’s still the beginning. A mundane, unextraordinary step that brings Lance that much closer to what he might describe later as a subjectively epic love story nestled within other subjectively epic stories—or maybe the novellas that make up their lives following this moment are all nestled within the greater overarching plot that is Lance and Keith.

But, again, they don’t know that yet.

* * *

They still don’t know during the second week of class, when introductions have come and gone and all the profs are cackling as though torturing students is the only relief from their bitter lives, and the TAs all wear similar expressions that read sympathetic but also Fuck-No-I-Ain’t-Regrading-That-Shit. So, yeah, two weeks in and Lance is suffering. Presently, he’s suffering at the front desk of the library, notes out and not a soul judging him because (A) employee benefits, and (B) the library doesn’t get busy at night until approximately five weeks in, when midterms hit and everyone is consumed with self-hatred and unnaturally high blood caffeine levels. This leaves Lance plenty of time to simply stare down at the concepts highlighted and boxed neatly in his notes, treated with as much care as his facial routine.

The problem is the longer Lance tries to figure them out, the less his brain is able to understand. The words float across the page and multiply, and no amount of pen-clicking and knee-jogging is helping. He gives up, just shoves aside the notebook, and tosses the pen across the desk so he has space to rest his forehead. His breath fogs up the surface in plumes. Maybe he should just drop out now. Save himself the impending stress, not that he isn’t already feeling it.

Unfortunately, he needs this credit. Dropping it means making up for it next semester or dropping out of school altogether, and _that_ is not a valid possibility. No, he has to power through this. It’s just the one course that drags at him like he’s trying to bike through chewed-up gum.

The thought that it’s only going to get more difficult makes Lance want to cry.

Hesitant footsteps approach the desk. “Uh—can I—hey, are you awake?”

“ _Fuuweh_ ,” responds Lance without lifting his head.

“He’s fine,” says another voice. A hand prods his shoulder unkindly. “We need a key, Lance.”

“ _Nnnguh."_

“Okay.”

It takes Lance a moment to realize he’s got an intruder barging their way behind the desk. It takes him another moment, after jerking his head up to protest, to realize it’s just Pidge. He returns his head to its spot on the desk. Maybe he’ll just carve out a little dent so it’s more comfortable; he expects he’ll be in this exact position again in the future.

“Haven’t you heard of asking?” he grumbles, closing his eyes again. “Study rooms close in ten minutes.”

“I said we needed a key,” says Pidge dismissively, grabbing one off the wall behind Lance. “Also, employee benefits.”

“ _Hrrrrbreh,"_ says Lance, reverting back to pseudoverbal responses.

“Tell me more.”

“ _Mmmbrrgh_.”

“Don’t worry about him,” sighs Pidge, presumably to her anonymous companion.

They leave, and for the next five minutes Lance continues to lament all his life choices that led him to this point, until he hears the familiar exhale—no, not a sigh, because he doesn’t _do_ sighs—of Hunk.

“You okay, buddy?” asks Hunk.

Lance lifts his head. Hunk stares at the blatant redness of his forehead.

“No,” says Lance. “This class is going to murder me. Roll me up in burlap, soak me in kerosene, toss me in the flames of angry literature students protesting the teaching of—”

“Yes, yes, I understand,” says Hunk, reaching over to sympathetically ruffle Lance’s hair. “It won’t though, I promise. I swear, the people we’re meeting up with tonight are _good_.”

“Bro, if _you_ can’t teach me,” begins Lance, feeling his eyes heat up. Rude. Stop that.

“ _I’m_ not in this class,” interrupts Hunk, the ruffling getting more affectionately vicious, “but they are. C’mon.”

Moaning and groaning, Lance peels himself away from the desk and into a sort of standing position. Sort of, because he’s still half draped over the computer screen and his cries of the undead (synonymous with the lamenting of students) are kind of echoing in the mostly empty library.

Hunk isn’t looking too impressed. Lance forces his spine to straighten. For Hunk, he’ll return to his full height and some semblance of maturity. He even scoops his notes into a kinda neat stack. What a good friend he is! Totally not crumbling, seams unraveling, eyes wide and flicking as though looking for an escape route—

“Lance, it’ll be fine,” Hunk sighs—except _not_ because he doesn’t _do that_. “I know them. You’re _going_ to know them. It’ll work out.”

“May I remind you of that time in high school where you said, I quote, ‘Chill Lance, they’re cool, you’re cool, you’ll get along great!’ and then I accidentally dropped an entire jug of pineapple mango juice on Shay’s head and Rax punched me in the kidney and I couldn’t pee properly for a week?”

“They forgave you,” says Hunk, although kinda weakly, which honestly isn’t helping.

“I’m going to somehow papercut their hair off and they’ll _hate me_. I’ll be turned into a social pariah. Even Her Gentle Righteousness won’t bother to bless me then.”

“Lance. I’m gonna need you to chill.”

“I _am_ chill!” squawks Lance, flinging his arms out and backhanding the wall of keys behind him. Instant regret. Cradling his stinging hand to his chest, Lance considers the fact that he may not be coming across as chill at all. “Okay, you know what? I’ll spend five minutes in that dread box—”

“Study room.”

“—and then I’m going to ollie the fuck out before I—”

“Insult their dead ancestors and demand I roll you up in burlap, soak you in kerosene, blah blah blah,” finishes Hunk. “I got you, bro, can we just _go?”_

“Fine,” heaves Lance, grabbing the notes. “Fine.”

* * *

There are two types of people:

  1. People who love themselves enough to resist being dragged into a study room with Pidge Holt hot on their heels, all four feet and ten-and-a-half inches of her; or, basically, people who have common fucking sense
  2. Keith Song, whose middle name (if he had one) probably should’ve been “Stupid-Fuckin’-Idiot”



Common sense dictates that if a student goes into a study room with the intent to study, any person accompanying them should be useful in some manner, i.e. smart, helpful, collaborative, other big words. Pidge is not...any of that.

Which means any time Keith chooses to enter a study room with Pidge, he has no fucking common sense.

The reason for it is clear—he (actually, everybody) doesn’t know what Pidge’s major is. It’s an easy, simple, uncomplicated fact that lights the path to a shitton of underlying implications, like how the B-Mart in the third floor girls’ bathroom houses the resident asshole Lotor and his part-time job in taking bets, or how Matt catches squirrels, half for a living and the other half for joy.

In this case, no one knowing what Pidge’s major is leads to the underlying question of if Pidge can or cannot help him with studying. Like, Schrödinger's cat. Pidge’s cat. Pidge’s cat can or cannot study. The cat can either deign to respond to questions (and more importantly, answer them correctly) or she can totally fuck him over by refusing to answer (and blatantly lying to him).

It’s not even just the fact that no one knows her major. It’s that presumably, Pidge has a major. Presumably, Pidge has zero to three jobs. Presumably, Pidge goes to the Garrison as a real student and can help him with studying.

_Presumably._

But it’s all speculation left for the common man to wonder and only Her Godliness to know, so here Keith is. Dragged by the neck with a chain made of eight years of friendship and blackmail into a study room that barely has enough windows to avoid looking like a prison.

Still. It’s not the room that makes it a prison, but the jailor.

“Do you get food in prison?” Keith asks Pidge, right before she trips him and sends him stumbling into the room. He rights himself and watches warily as the door _clicks_ shut behind them. “Do I get food in prison?”

“If this is about you contemplating murder for the weirdo with the duct-taped engine, I’d advise against it,” Pidge says, setting her bag down with a _thump._ Keith looks away to the window as she pulls out her things; instinct is useful in many situations, like where to go to avoid being shanked in the streets of Chicago on a school trip, or how looking away when Pidge takes out her study materials equates to another day left alive on this planet. “I don't think prison is worth it for that.”

“It’s not about that,” Keith says, once she’s set out all her things on the wooden table. “I’m just. Worried.”

“About what?”

“Past experience says that I barely get out of this study room alive, Pidge.”

“Well, none of that,” she says. “Today we have company. So, no murder, no conspiracy theories, no aliens.”

“Thank god for that,” Keith says, just as the door opens.

His first thought, before he can stop himself, is _nice_ . His second thought is _what the fuck_ when a small stack of notes cascades from the hands of the tall guy standing frozen in the doorway. Wide eyes are fixated on Keith, looking weirdly betrayed for whatever reason. Then the guy splutters a distinctly nervous laugh, drags a hand through short dark hair, and tries to spin around on his heel and _leave_.

The only reason he doesn’t succeed is because there’s a far more built man standing directly behind him who doesn’t budge an inch.

“Turn around,” orders The Wall, and The Much Smaller Wall Maybe More Of A Spear sheepishly ducks his head and obediently spins back around, dropping into a crouch to pick up the fallen notes.

“Hey,” says Pidge, like the sight of Spear Man dropping his notes and Accompanying Wall admonishing him is a familiar sight that deserves the same treatment as the sight of Matt catching squirrels; that is, to move on and ignore it. “Welcome to our humble abode.”

“I hope you realize the library closes in eight minutes,” Spear Man says. “Also, this is the best study room we got, so I dare you to call it humble one more time.”

“Humble,” Pidge says, and fingerspells it just for good measure. _H-U-M-B-L-E._

“Yellow card, Pidge.”

Pidge hums, the one that says “I have perfectly functioning ears but because whatever you said is irrelevant to the current situation, I’m ignoring it.” Or, Hum #23.

Keith casts seeking glances between her, Spear Man, and Wall Man. When it becomes apparent that nothing else is going to be said while Spear Man and Wall Man pull up their chairs, he turns to Pidge. “Whomst.”

“Hunk,” Pidge says, nodding to Wall Man. Then she jerks her chin at Spear Man. “Lance.”

Lance. Spear Man. Lance.

“Haha,” says Keith before he can stop himself, “Lance.”

Spear Man—Lance blinks at him. Blinks at Hunk. “Did he just laugh at my name?”

Oh. Fuck.

Keith shoots Pidge a pleading look. She steeples her fingers and presses them to her lips. This is definitely going to end up on her blog or some shit what the _hell_.

He twists in his seat to look at Lance. “I didn’t mean—No. I didn’t. Uh.”

“I’ll have you know,” starts Lance, “that my name—Lance Espinosa—is a _great_ fucking name. Better than whatever yours is.”

“I—”

“You look like some kind of Darrell,” Lance goes on. “Or Carl. Or—or Steven.”

Something in Keith goes deadly still.

“Oh, no,” Pidge mutters.

“Did you say I looked like a Steven?” Keith asks, and somehow he manages to sound utterly calm when he says it. “A Steven? Me?”

“Who else here looks like a Steven, Steven?”

Keith exhales. “Me. Steven.”

“You,” Lance says. “Steven.”

“Me, Hunk,” cuts in Hunk, resting one hand on Lance’s dumb pointy spear shoulder. “Can we maybe get to studying? Lance is having trouble with Thace’s material.”

“Hunk!” splutters Lance, looking utterly betrayed. “Why would you say that?!”

“That’s literally the reason we’re here, Lance.” Hunk presses down on his shoulder until Lance, sinking deeper into his seat, sucks in his lips and goes silent with a glower at the undeserving table.

Pidge, absorbing the exchange like some sort of demon sponge, chooses that moment to _finally_ remove her fingers from her laptop and butt in. “Now that we’re all _best friends_ , we can get straight to the good shit.”

Lance mouths _good shit_ with eyes wide and horrified. Keith honestly can’t say he understands why this guy is apparently having so much trouble with the class material, especially considering it’s _Thace,_ but whatever.

When Keith continues to glower at Lance, she leans in and whispers in his ear, “Get some studying done today, or I promise I will find a way to leak the story of Your Incident With Goats.”

Keith sucks in a quiet breath. “You fucking _wouldn’t._ He called me Steven, Pidge.”

“I know. But it’s either linger on Steven, or goats.”

“Fuck you,” he hisses at her, and she smiles. Fine. _Fine._

“So, _Lance,_ ” Keith says, and Lance’s gaze whips back up from the table to meet his, “what’s so hard about Thace’s material?”

Lance narrows his eyes. “Are you in his class too? Steven?”

Beside him, Pidge pats his thigh as a grim reminder before putting her fingers to the keyboard again gleefully.

“It’s _Keith,_ ” Keith says, “and I am. So let’s see it, whatever’s got you stuck.”

Lance’s eyes flicker between the notes and Keith. “If you do something to it,” Lance warns, pushing it across the table, “like you rip it ‘by accident’ or spill coffee ‘by accident’ or whatever—”

Keith rolls his eyes. “I’m not that immature. Give it here.”

Lance finally pushes it in reach, and Keith drags the notebook closer to look at it. So, standard concepts. Standard equations. Everything about it is pretty standard, except for the—

“What the _hell_ is this handwriting?” Keith says, partly horrified, partly awed, as he brings up the paper to his eyes. An array of colors brighter than the sun’s ass gleams—no, _glitters—_ at him in the neatest fucking font he’s ever seen crafted by human hands. “What the shit. What the ever-loving shit.”

“What?” snaps Lance defensively.

“This—did _you_ write this?” It comes off accusatory, but Keith can’t be bothered to care because it’s like being thrown into one of those aesthetic blogs with all the flowers and coffee and bullet journals that Keith _swears_ he’s never been interested in.

“Oh.” Lance’s mouth curves into an arrogant smile, and then he proudly says, “Yeah, obviously.”

Keith blinks at him. There’s a beat of silence. Lance still looks weirdly proud, as if the fact his notes look like fairies shit all over them is a _good_ thing.

Then Lance leans forward, a hand splayed over his glittering notes, and says, “What? Your eyesight too weak to read _art?"_

Who the _fuck_ is this guy?

“Well,” Keith says finally, “if this is art, it’s a knockoff Mona Lisa.”

In the silence that follows between the two of them, three things can clearly be heard:

  1. The baleful cries of Her Immune Safeness somewhere within the library;
  2. Pidge’s fingers clacking against the keyboard faster than the squirrels Matt catches;
  3. Hunk’s quiet, almost fearful, “Shit.”



Lance breathes in and lays his hands very carefully on the table. “Look here, Steven,” he says quietly, then meets Keith’s eyes. “ _S_ _hut up._

Keith finds himself mockingly imitating Lance, palms flat as he leans in. “ _M_ _ake me._ ”

“OKAY,” Hunk says, chair almost clattering to the floor in his haste to stand up. “ALRIGHT. WHO WANTS SOME COFFEE.”

“I hate coffee,” Keith says immediately, eyes not wavering from Lance’s face.

“And I hate assholes who hate beverages, including coffee,” says Lance.

“People are allowed to dislike what the fuck ever they want, you lit—”

“TEA IS ALSO GOOD,” Hunk says. “TEA IS ALSO VERY GOOD. VERY HEALTHY. LOTS OF BENEFITS.”

Lance slams his hands down and shoots to his feet. Keith is barely a beat behind, their foreheads nearly colliding as they trade seething glares. Lance opens his mouth to say something, Keith does too, and then Lance cuts off with a choking sound as Hunk grabs him by the collar and yanks him down.

Hunk’s expression isn’t a good one. Even Keith can tell, and he’s just met the guy. Both he and Lance settle themselves back into their seats. Lance folds his hands over his notes. Keith tucks his into his elbows. Pidge makes a sound suspiciously like a snort.

“LET’S PRETEND,” says Hunk loudly, before his voice drops to a level suitable for libraries, “that none of this has happened, and get back to the studying, yes?”

Lance grumbles something unintelligible.

Hunk looks at him. “Pardon?”

Lance drops in his seat, shoulders hunched. “...Nothing.”

Hunk looks askance at Keith. In Hunk’s expression, there’s nothing but gentleness and a kind smile, but there’s _something_ that makes his instincts blare alarms the same way it does when he walks around Chicago at night or when Pidge takes out her notes.

“Yeah,” Keith says, and sinks down into his seat. “What he said.”

“Great,” Hunk says. “Pidge, let’s study now, okay?”

Pidge clicks her mouse, and somehow the sound reminds him of the _schwing_ of a guillotine blade dropping. He swallows and glances to the side as Pidge shuts her laptop.

“All done,” she says. Her pleased smile says there’s a blog post he’ll expect sometime within the next few hours. Oh Nelly. “Let’s get down to business.”

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> well okay after three days of the most intense writing of our lives the first part is finally out!! thanks to the apartment squad for being our inspiration and also to the godly series jaywalkers (if you guys haven't checked it out the link is above c:) and uhhh the academy and uhhh kanye shrug yeah. thanks for reading!!


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